PGA Rolls Out Plans, Timeline For It's Grow The Game Move To Frisco, Texas, Home To Future PGA's And Ryder Cups
/
We’re making the world a better place! I mean, Grow the game!
It’s a tired mantra wheeled out to sell just about anything in golf, including, repeatedly by new PGA of America CEO Seth Waugh in lieu of just saying, “we got a great deal to develop a project in Texas that’s aligns perfectly with our organization’s history of partnering on projects and eventually walking away from them.”
I guess that doesn’t quite sing like grow the game and Silicon Valley, assuming he’s referring to the region and not the television show.
Anyway, the new development will have a monster Omni Hotel, offices to process those pricey PGA member dues and will serve as the 2027 PGA Championship host site. Also, a possible 2040 Ryder Cup is headed there, with the task force inevitably penciling in Captain Jordan Spieth in Frisco to play the 7,603 yard Gil Hanse course as the primary venue. The project breaks ground this winter and debuts three years later with the 2023 PGA Senior Championship.
Beau Welling will be doing the second course. (Awkwardly, Hanse recently renovated one of Welling’s biggest projects from the Fazio years, Pinehurst No. 4.)
Art Stricklin for Golf.com, explaining the inspiration for the Hanse design:
The East Course, measuring 7,603 yards from the back tees with a par of 72, has already been tapped to host two PGA Championships, the first in 2027 and another in ’34, along with a tentative Ryder Cup in 2040.
Hanse, who designed the Olympic Golf Course in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, has recently redone Pinehurst No. 4 and is currently working on a complete renovation at Oakland Hills GC, outside Detroit. But it was his recent redo of the Maxwell classic at Southern Hills CC in Tulsa, Okla., that motivated him for the PGA Frisco project.
“I think you saw a true restoration of the (original) Maxwell course at Southern Hills and you’ll see a lot of stylistic imports from Maxwell at the PGA course here,” Hanse said Monday a press event for the new PGA of America HQ. “I haven’t been to all the Maxwell courses, but you will see the deep bunkers around the greens and the smaller greens. That’s part of what I hope to see [here].”
This Tweet lists the championships committed to Frisco:
A Tweeted map of the Hanse design:
They had a diverse group for the big rollout…some men in ties, some not in ties.
